Category: EDUCATION

by Terry Heick

If the ultimate goal of education is for students to be able to answer questions effectively, then focusing on content and response strategies makes sense. If the ultimate goal of education is to teach students to think, then focusing on how we can help students ask better questions themselves might make sense, no?

Why Questions Are More Important Than Answers

The ability to ask the right question at the right time is a powerful indicator of authentic understanding. Asking a question that pierces the veil in any given situation is itself an artifact of the critical thinking teachers so desperately seek in students, if for no other reason than it shows what the student knows, and then implies the desire to know more.

Asking a question (using strategies to help students ask better questions, for example) is a sign of understanding, not ignorance; it requires both knowledge and then–critically–the ability to see what else you’re missing.

Questions are more important than answers because they reflect understanding and curiosity in equal portions. To ask a question is to see both backward and forward–to make sense of a thing and what you know about it, and then extend outward in space and time to imagine what else can be known, or what others might know. To ask a great question is to see the conceptual ecology of the thing.

In a classroom, a student can see a drop of water, a literary device, a historical figure, or a math theorem, but these are just worthless fragments. A student in biology studying a drop of water must see the water as infinitely plural–as something that holds life and something that gives life.

As a marker of life, and an icon of health.

It is a tool, a miracle, a symbol, and a matter of science.

They must know what’s potentially inside a drop of water and how to find out what’s actually inside that drop of water.

They must know what others have found studying water and what that drop of water means within and beyond the field of science.

They must know that water is never really just water.

Teacher Questions vs Student Questions

When teachers try to untangle this cognitive mess, they sacrifice personalization for efficiency. There are too many students, and too much content to cover, so they cut to the chase.

Which means then tend towards the universal over the individual–broad, sweeping questions intermingling with sharper, more concise questions that hopefully shed some light and cause some curiosity. In a class of 30 with an aggressively-paced curriculum map and the expectation that every student master the content regardless of background knowledge, literacy level, or interest in the material, this is the best most teachers can do.

This only a bottleneck, though, when the teacher asks the questions. When the student asks the question, the pattern is reversed. The individual student has little regard for the class’s welfare, especially when forming questions. They’re on the clock to say something, anything. Which is great, because questions–when they’re authentic–are automatically personal because they came up with them. They’re not tricks or guess-what-the-teacher’s-thinking.

A student couldn’t possibly capture the scale of confusion or curiosity of 30 other people; instead, they survey their thinking, spot both gaps and fascinations and form a question. This is the spring-loading of a Venus flytrap. The topic crawls around in the student’s mind innocently enough, and when the time is right—and the student is confident—the flower snaps shut. Once a student starts asking questions, that magic of learning can begin.

And the best part for a teacher? Questions reveal far more than answers ever might.

The Purpose of Questions

Thought of roughly as a kind of spectrum, four purposes of questions might stand out, from more “traditional” to more “progressive.”

In What Is The Purpose Of A Question? Terry Heick said:

“To be a little more abstract, a good question causes thinking–more questions. Better questions. It clarifies and reveals. It causes hope.

A bad question stops thinking. It confuses and obscures. It causes doubt.”

(More Traditional) Academic View

In a traditional academic setting, the purpose of a question is to elicit a response that can be assessed (i.e., answer this question so I can see what you know).

(Less Traditional) Curriculum-Centered View

Here, a ‘good question’ matters more than a good answer, as it demonstrates the complexity of student understanding of a given curriculum.

(More Progressive) Inquiry View

As confusion or curiosity markers that suggest a path forward for inquiry, and then are iterated and improved based on learning. (Also known as question-based learning.)

(More Progressive Still) Self-Directed View

In a student-centered circumstance, a question illuminates possible learning pathways forward irrespective of curriculum demands. The student’s own knowledge demands–and their uncovering–center and catalyze the learning experience.

To be a little more abstract, a good question causes thinking–more questions. Better questions. It clarifies and reveals. It causes hope. A bad question stops thinking. It confuses and obscures. It causes doubt.

The Relative Strengths of Questions

• Good questions can reveal subtle shades of understanding–what this student knows about this topic in this context
• Questions promote inquiry and learning how to learn over proving what you know
• Questions fit in well with the modern “Google” mindset
• Used well, questions can promote personalized learning as teachers can change questions on the fly to meet student needs

The Relative Weaknesses of Questions

• Questions depend on language, which means literacy, jargon, confusing syntax, academic diction, and more can all obscure the learning process
• Questions can imply answers, which imply stopping points and ‘finishing’ over inquiry and wisdom (See questions that promote inquiry-based learning.)
• Accuracy of answers can be overvalued, which makes the confidence of the answerer impact the quality of the response significantly
• “Bad questions” are easy to write and deeply confusing, which can accumulate to harm a student’s sense of self-efficacy, as well as their tendency to ask them on their own

7 Common Written Assessment Question Forms

Questions as written assessment (as opposed to questions as inquiry, questions to guide self-directed learning, or questions to demonstrate understanding) most commonly take the following forms in writing:

Matching

True/False

Multiple Choice

Short Answer

Diagramming

Essay

Open-Ended

Questioning In The Classroom & Self-Directed Learning

For years, questions have guided teachers in the design of units and lessons in classrooms, often through the development of essential questions that all students should be able to reasonably respond to and that can guide their learning of existing and pre-mapped content.

In the TeachThought Self-Directed Learning Model, learners are required to create their own curriculum through a series of questions that emphasize self-knowledge, citizenship, and communal and human interdependence. In this model, existing questions act as a template to uncover potential learning pathways.

Also, the Question Formation Technique is a powerful strategy for asking questions in the classroom, which you can read about here along with other strategies for helping students ask great questions in the classroom.

What Is Cognitive Dissonance?

Cognitive Dissonance is the cognitively-uncomfortable act of holding two seemingly competing beliefs simultaneously. If you believe that Freedom of Speech is the foundation of democracy, but then are presented with a perspective (through Socratic-style questioning in the classroom from the teacher, for example), you arrive (or the student does) at a crossroads where they have to adjust something–either their belief or their judgment about the validity of the question itself.

In this way, questions can promote Cognitive Dissonance, meaning a good question can change a student’s mind, beliefs, or tendency to examine their own beliefs. Questions, cognitive, and self-reflection go hand-in-hand.

The Role of ‘Lower-Level’ Questions in the Classroom

Lower-level questions inquire at ‘lower levels’ of various learning taxonomies.

These are often ‘recall’ questions that are based in fact—definitions, dates, names, biographical details, etc.  Education is thought to have focused (without having been there, who knows for sure?) on these lower levels, and ‘low’ is bad in academics, right? ‘Lower-level’ thinking implies a lack of ‘higher-level’ thinking, so instead of analyzing, interpreting, evaluating, and creating, students are defining, recalling, and memorizing, the former of which make for artists and designers and innovators, and the latter of which make for factory workers.

And that part, at least, is (mostly) true. Recall and memorization aren’t the stuff of understanding, much less creativity and wisdom, except that they are. Bloom’s Taxonomy was not created to segregate ‘good thinking’ from ‘bad thinking.’ In their words, “Our attempt to arrange educational behaviors from simple to complex was based on the idea that a particular simple behavior may become integrated with other equally simple behaviors to form a more complex behavior.” In this way, the taxonomy is simply one way of separating the strands of thinking like different colored yarn–a kind of visual scheme to see the pattern, contrasts, and even sequence of cognitive actions.

Nowhere does it say that definitions, names, labels, and categories are bad–and if it did, we’d have to wonder about the taxonomy rather than assuming that they were. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that if a student doesn’t know there was a war, and that it was fought in the United States in the 1800s, and that it was purportedly over states’ rights, and that both culture, industry, and agriculture all impacted the hows, whens, and whys of the war, that ‘higher-level thinking strategies’ aren’t going to be very useful.

In short, lower-level questions can illuminate and establish foundational knowledge to build a more complex and nuanced understanding of content. They provide a foothold for thinking. To further the point, in 5 Common Misconceptions About Bloom’s Taxonomy, Grant Wiggins explains that the phrases ‘higher-order’ and ‘lower-order’ don’t appear anywhere in the taxonomy.

Essential Questions in the Classroom

Grant Wiggins defined an essential question as “broad in scope and timeless by nature. They are perpetually arguable.”

Examples of Essential Questions

What is justice?

Is art a matter of taste or principles?

How far should we tamper with our biology and chemistry?

Is science compatible with religion?

Is an author’s view privileged in determining the meaning of a text?

A question is essential when it:

causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content;

provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions;

requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers;

stimulates vital, ongoing rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons;

sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences;

naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects.

You can see more examples of essential questions here.

Bonus

9. Think-Pair-Share

Think-Pair-Share is a collaborative learning strategy that promotes discussion and allows students to share their thoughts and questions with a partner before sharing with the larger group.

Process

Think: Pose a thought-provoking question or problem related to the lesson. Give students a few minutes to think about their responses individually.

Pair: Have students pair with a partner to discuss their thoughts and questions. Encourage them to come up with additional questions during their discussion.

Share: Pairs share their questions and ideas with the class. This can be done by having each pair present their most interesting question or facilitating a larger group discussion where pairs contribute to a growing list of questions.

Follow-Up: Use the questions generated from the Think-Pair-Share activity to guide further inquiry, research projects, or class discussions.

10. Wonderwall

Description: A Wonder Wall is a dedicated space in the classroom where students can post questions that come to mind during lessons, discussions, or independent activities. It is a visual and interactive tool to foster a culture of inquiry.

Process

Create the Space: Designate a section of a wall or a bulletin board as the Wonder Wall. Provide sticky notes, markers, and a way for students to add questions easily.

Introduce the Concept: Explain to students that the Wonder Wall is a place for them to post any questions about the topics being studied or other related curiosities. Encourage them to write their questions on sticky notes and place them on the wall.

Regularly Review and Address Questions: Set aside time each week to review the questions on the Wonder Wall. Select a few questions to investigate further as a class or to incorporate into future lessons and activities.

Encourage Peer Interaction: Allow students to read and respond to their peers’ questions on the Wonder Wall. They can add comments, suggestions, or additional questions, creating a collaborative and dynamic learning environment.

Integrate into Curriculum: Use the questions from the Wonder Wall to guide inquiry-based projects, research assignments, or class discussions. This ensures that student curiosity directly influences learning and keeps students engaged.

A Guide To Questioning In The Classroom; image attribution flickr user flickeringbrad

by Terry Heick

Having gone on for decades now, discussions around the idea of ed reform are a bit tired.

They seem pointless. Exhausting. A waste of time and creative bandwidth. Bottom-up change is exhausting and top-down change is exhausting for entirely different reasons.

Rather than state or federal policy, make schools and communities accountable to one another.

This would require supporting those communities in various ways and supporting learners by expanding the definition of ‘academic’ success.

Among the benefits, the improved visibility of our collective, shared challenge to educate every learner every day for every standard regardless of background, literacy, learning habits, or scheme would be visible to everyone–kind of like opening the kitchen of a failing restaurant for the public to see; not to shame, but so that everyone could better understand.

See also What Else Schools Could Be Besides Schools?

It’d be a mess at first, but it would also expose the overwheling problems with our standards and curriculum and other related flaws like those in assessment and instruction, for example.

It might also, indrectly, reveal ‘flaws’ in our collective practices as a society (not just as schools and classrooms), but doesn’t education already has enough on its plate? Parents might see our collective challenge as something whole and shared–or at least would have the chance to.

In Why Parents Don’t Understand School, I said “This is a challenge (of schools and communities not speaking the same language) not new to education, but because of the unique position of educators as both experts and conduits between formal education and local communities, the burden falls to teachers to not simply paraphrase and translate but build and transfer capacity from the inside out.”

But what if parents and families ‘don’t have time’? Judging by our collective test scores, student apathy, teacher burnout statistics, graduation rates from high school to college, and general lack of widespread, genuinely inspirational teaching and learning, neither do we.

‘Accountability,’ then, could become opportunity for all of us.

Parents aren’t clear what’s being taught in school, not to mention how or why? That’s a place to start.

There are too few resources in communities? In schools? Another good place.

Society at large doesn’t understand formal learning–especially K-12? What exactly is being taught and why? This might be one of the most significant challenges, but that’s fine. We can all share, invest in, and thoughtfully approach it all together.

Is literacy a problem at home, which is why it’s a problem in schools–or is it the other way around?

Families have no real idea at all what’s happening in the classroom? Force their complete involvement. If they can’t, that’s okay–let’s just all be transparent that schools aren’t ‘the problem.’ If we can agree there, the rest can being a bit easier to sort out.

Does this all sound impractical? Silly? More trouble than it’s worth? Hopeless? There’s another bit of data: we’re trying open schools to families and no one understands how or why.

Isn’t that what’s crazy?

What happens when schools and families don’t talk?

Or worse, when they couldn’t even if they tried?

Once it’s begun, it’s difficult to fully separate the person from the task. 

When the artist is painting, the painter and the act of painting become a single ‘thing.’ The painting becomes a part of it all, too.

As a teacher, your ‘self’ is embedded within your teaching—which is how it goes from ‘job’ to craft. The learning results are yours. You probably call them ‘your’ students. The same goes for students as well. There is a pleasing kind of string between the 8-year-old playing Minecraft and his or her digital creation.

This is the magic of doing.

But this also presents some problems. Students’ work and performance—both what they can and can’t do—are a part of who they are, and they are keenly aware of this. Even our language reflects this idea.

Did you do your best on your homework? (As opposed to “Was the best work done on the assigned homework?”)

Are you an A student? (As opposed to students who usually receive As on their report card.)

Are you confused? (As opposed to awkward sounding but entirely logical “Do you have confusion?”)

1. Recognize and adapt feedback loops.

2. Emphasize mindset as central to success

3. Improve metacognition/offer metacognitive strategies

Learning is personal.

The Habits Your Students Retreat To

So it makes sense that self-defense mechanisms kick in when they’re challenged. This can create all sorts of messes in the classroom that you could spend the entire year chasing down.

Lack of apparent curiosity.

Apathy.

Refusal to take risks.

Decreased creativity.

Defeated tones.

Scrambles for shortcuts.

It just might be that these are all symptoms rather than causes. That is, symptoms of not wanting to make mistakes, fail, be corrected, or be thought of less by peers. As teachers, though, we tend to see them as causes of the mediocre work we can sometimes see.

How we feel and think of ourselves matters in learning. Confidence, self-knowledge, interdependence, curiosity, and other learning abstractions are all as critical as reading level and writing strategies.

See also How Project-Based Learning Can Promote Social-Emotional Learning Skills

When students confront new content (e.g., a lesson with new ideas), circumstances (e.g., a collaborative project with students from another school), or challenges (e.g., self-direction in the face of distraction), their responses may not always be ideal.

But as teachers, we do the same thing. We may begin an open-ended unit that attempts to use a learning simulation to allow students to toy with STEM concepts, but the minute things don’t work out, we can often retreat to bad habits.

Scripted work. Negativity. Essays as assessment.

Talktalktalktalktalktalktalk.

Confidence, interdependence, curiosity, and other abstractions are all equally critical as reading level and writing strategies.

4 Questions For Self-Knowledge & Reflection For Students

So in the face of a challenge, what do your students ‘retreat to’? Below are four questions they can use to begin this kind of reflection and self-awareness.

1. How do I respond when I’m challenged–intellectually, emotionally, physically, etc.? Do I see the difference in each of these categories of response?
2. Which resources and strategies do I tend to favor, and which do I tend to ignore?
3. What can I do to make myself more aware of my own thinking and emotions?
4. What happens if I don’t change anything at all?

5 Ways To Create More Confident Students: Promoting Self-Awareness & Metacognition In The Classroom

So if these are the kinds of questions we face as educators, and the reality students face as emerging independent thinkers, how can we begin to promote this kind of behavior in the classroom? And further, how can we establish these actions as habits—thoughtless actions that students initiate on their own with little to no prompting?

Like anything, it is first a matter of visibility—understanding what is necessary, seeing it when it happens, emphasizing and celebrating it, etc. In the classroom, this might be stopping during an especially teachable moment when you sense students struggling—or responding well—and having them journal, share thoughts with elbow partners, or somehow reflect on both the challenge and their response. To improve student confidence, you must first find the source of their lack of confidence.

See Statement Stems To Help Students Develop A Growth Mindset and Metacognitive Prompts For Students.

Second, it is a matter of practice. Anything complex or unnatural requires repetition. The more students see themselves face major and minor challenges in the classroom and then see the effects of their responses, the more conditioned they’ll be to respond ideally on their own.

There is also the reality of the many feedback loops student interact in and through in our classrooms. (You can read more about that in What Is A Feedback Loop?) Creating more confident students means seeing and practicing (see above) feedback loops that tend to create opportunities to establish confidence and tend to not create opportunities that reduce confidence. For example, if a student is losing confidence in math because of test anxiety, we should consider that goal is to master math skills and concepts, not ‘do well on tests.’

While we want students to perform well on any assessment, lacking confidence will obscure and/or invalidate assessment data. Put another way, their test scores may not reflect their grasp of content. To help this student develop more confidence in math, we’d first have to see this feedback loop for what it is (students worry about math –> perform poorly on math test –> their belief about themselves as this loop seemingly reinforces math students), then adjust or remove the loop: alter the assessment in some way (form, duration, complexity, etc.) or move to exit slip teaching for a short period of time to remove the punisher (i.e., bad test scores).

Of course, learning to fail is a part of life and learning. The idea here is not to avoid negative events that may hurt confidence as this may have the opposite effect and reduce the likelihood that students will develop strength, perseverance, and the kind of mindset that will support them inside and outside of your classroom.

Lastly, there is the possibility of some mindfulness coaching for students. Help them separate themselves from their work and related performance. Help them understand that our lives aren’t single decisions but a vast tapestry of connections, with any single moment, performance, or failure barely visible and only important as it relates to their lives as a whole.

Closely related here are student mindset (including what they assume about themselves and any given assignment they might struggle with) and metacognition (seeing their own thinking, internal dialogue, etc.) and making adjustments as necessary.

by Terry Heick

Reflection is a natural part of learning.

We all think about new experiences–the camping on the car ride home, the mistakes made in a game, or the emotions felt while finishing a long-term project that’s taken months to complete.

Below I’ve shared 15 strategies for students to reflect on their learning. Modeling the use of each up front can go a long way towards making sure you get the quality of work you’d like to see throughout the year–and students learn more in the process.

15 Reflection Strategies To Help Students Retain What You Just Taught Them

1. Pair-Share

Pair-share is a classic learning strategy where students are paired, and then verbally ‘share’ something that will help them learn new content, deepen understanding, or review what they already know. It can also be used as a quick and dirty assessment tool, as the conversations generally reflect a level of understanding the teacher can use gauge mastery and plan further instruction.

2. Sentence Stem-based responses

Sentence stems are great because they’re like training wheels–or to mix a metaphor, tools to coach students into thinking and speaking in certain patterns. For example, you can implore students to ‘think critically,’ but if they don’t have even the basic phrasing of critical thinking (e.g., ‘This is important because…’), critical thinking will be beyond their reach.

You can also see our sentence stems for critical thinking here for other examples (you don’t have to buy the materials to see the samples).

3. Layered Text

Layered text is something I’ve meant to write about for years and never have. A layered text is a digital document that is filled with hyperlinks that communicate, well, just about anything: Questions students have, opportunities for further inquiry, odd references and allusions that reflect the schema students use to make meaning, and so on. (Rap Genius does a version of this.)

By adding ‘layers’ of meaning to a text through meaningful hyperlinking, students can reflect back on anything, from a pre-assessment journal entry that demonstrated their lack of understanding, to a kind of ‘marking up’ of what they learned when, and from where.

4. Tweet

140 characters forces students to reflect quick and to the point–great for brief bursts of reflection or hesitant writers who would struggle to write meaningful journal entries or essays. In fact, you can combine twitter with #6 for twitter exit slips.

5. 3-2-1

3-2-1 is a tried-and-true way to frame anything from a pair-share or journal entry (e.g., ask students to write 3 things they think they know, 2 things they know they don’t know, and one thing they’re certain of about a topic) pre-assessment to a post-assessment (e.g., list three ways your essay reflected mastery of skill X, two ways skill Y still needs improving, and one way you can make your argument stronger in the next five minutes) to a reflection of the post-assessment.

Read more about using the 3-2-1 format for critical thinking.

6. Exit Slips

Whether you call them exit slips or exit tickets, asking students to briefly leave behind some residue of learning–a thought, a definition, a question–is a powerful teaching strategy. In fact, ‘exit-slip teaching’ literally drives how I use data in the classroom. Asking students to drop some bit of reflection of the learning process on a chair by the door on the way out is a no-brainer.

Some examples?

How did you respond emotionally to something you struggled with today? What did you find most surprising about _____? How did your understanding of _______ change today? What about _____ still confuses you or makes your curious?

7. Write-Around

I love write-arounds–easy ways for students to write asynchronously and collaboratively. And the writing fragments students use don’t have to be prose–certain key vocabulary and phrases can help students reflect, but most importantly in a write-around, help students learning from one another as each student is able to read other responses before creating theirs.

8. Sketch

Whether by sketch-notes or doodles, allowing students to draw what they think they know, how they believe their learning has changed, or some kind of metaphorical pathway towards deeper understanding is a great learning strategy for students that tend towards creative expression, and a non-threatening way for struggling students to at least write something down on paper you can use to gauge understand and plan your (their) next step.

9. Podcast

Through podcasting as a reflecting strategy, students will talk about their learning while recording. If you want to keep it ‘closed-circuit’ (not published), or actually push it to a public audience of some kind depends on the learning and students and privacy issues and so on.

This can also be simply an audio file recorded and uploaded to a private YouTube channel that’s shared with teachers or parents.

10. Brainstorming

Brainstorming can be an effective reflection strategy because it disarms issues with other approaches. For hesitant writers, journaling may not work because the writing process could overwhelm the learning. Podcasting may not work for shy students, Pair-Share may not work well if students are paired effectively, and so on.

Brainstorming is much simpler. Students could take an allotted time to write down everything they remember about a topic. Or, they could brainstorm questions they still have (things they’re confused or curious about). They could even brainstorm how what what they learned literally connects with what they already know by creating a concept map.

11. Jigsawing

Jigsawing is a grouping strategy where a task, concept, or something ‘larger’ is broken down into small puzzles pieces, and students in groups analyze the small puzzle piece, then share out to create the puzzle at large. Using this approach for reflection is seamless: Among other approaches, you can prompt students in groups to gather and share questions they have (you could group by readiness/ability, for example) in groups, and then choose one question that they weren’t able to answer among themselves with the whole class (anonymously–no one has to know who wrote the question).

12. Prezi

Think of a cross between a sketch, collage, and presentation, and you have a prezi. Engaging–though distracting and overwhelming if the reflection you need is minor–reflection tool that allows students to create an artifact of learning for their digital portfolios.

13. Vlog

This reflection strategy is close to ‘Podcasting’ and even has something in common with pair-sharing. By reflecting through vlog’ing, students simply talk about their learning to a camera.

This approach would be successful for students that love talking to a camera, but less so for others (who, if they have to talk at all about their learning, may prefer podcasting–or simply recording audio files that are never published.

14. Collage

You could do a normal collage of learning reflections, but a multimedia collage is also possible–maybe a sketchnote with a voiceover recorded as a YouTube video to share as a quick presentation with the class (or absent students).

15. Journaling

The University of Missouri-St Louis offers 3 kinds of journals that demonstrate the different possibilities of the otherwise vanilla-sounding ‘journaling.’

1. Personal Journal – Students will write freely about their experience. This is usually done weekly. These personal journals may be submitted periodically to the instructor, or kept as a reference to use at the end of the experience when putting together an academic essay reflecting their experience. (Hatcher 1996)

2. Dialogue Journal – Students submit loose-leaf pages from a dialogue journal bi-weekly (or otherwise at appropriate intervals) for the instructor to read and comment on. While labor intensive for the instructor, this can provide continual feedback to students and prompt new questions for students to consider during the semester. (Goldsmith, 1995)

3. Highlighted Journal – Before students submit the reflective journal, they reread personal entries and, using a highlighter, mark sections of the journal that directly relate to concepts discussed in the text or in class. This makes it easier for the instructor to identify the student to reflect on their experience in light of course content. (Gary Hesser, Augsberg College)

15 Strategies For Students To Reflect On Their Learning; image attribution Flickr user woodleywonderworks

by Terry Heick

A few years ago, I wrote about Types of Learning Journals and reflection was a part of this thinking.

I’ve also shared a small collection of basic reflective questions in the past that could be used as a tweet or other social media post.

Now, for an updated post, I’ve collected many of these questions into a single post that you can sift through and hopefully find something you can use in your classroom tomorrow. Some are questions while others are question stems that can be used to guide reflection in specific lessons or scenarios where unique language or ideas are needed.

See also 12 Authentic Starting Points For Learning

Reflection Questions For Learning

1. What do you remember about what you learned today? Write down as many things as you can in 30/60/90 seconds.

2. Of what you remember, what seemed to be the most important ideas? Write down 3-5 things in bullet-point format.

3. What was your role in the learning process today? Did you find any new information? Interpret it? Attempt to ‘remember’ it? Complete a task? Listen? Watch? Skim? Try? Combine? Consider? Evaluate? Calculate? List? Describe? Problem solve? Recall? Create?

4. Were you an active or a passive learner? Did the learning activity allow (or force) you to be one or the other (active versus passive)?

5. What did you notice others doing during today’s lesson? Include other students, the teacher, etc. Infer cognitive behaviors (what they were doing ‘in their minds’) and listing physical and observable behaviors.

Metacognitive Questions For Learning

6. When were you at your best today?

7. What opportunities did you have today? Which were worthy of your attention, energy, or best thinking? Did you take them?

8. What did you assume about today’s learning before we started? How did that affect your learning (for better or for worse)?

9. What was your mindset before, during, and after the lesson?

10. What are you sure you understand about _____?

11. What do you think you might understand about _____?

12. What are you sure you misunderstand about _____? What is the most likely source of the confusion?

Nature Of Knowledge Reflective Questions

13. What do you suspect that you might misunderstand about ____?

14. What is the difference between misunderstanding and not yet knowing?

15. What do you already know that you can use to think about or learn _____?

16. How do you know that you understand _____?

17. How do you know that you don’t understand ______?

18. How did you respond when struggled with today (if you did)?

19. What did you find most surprising about _____?

20. How did your understanding of _______ change today?

21. Of what you learned, how much of it was new, and how much of it have you seen before?

22. What about _____ makes you curious?

23. How is ____ similar to _____?

24. How does what you learned relate to what you already knew?

25. So? So What? What now? (Summarize what you learned, roughly explain its significance, and estimate what you might/could/should do next in response.)

Bonus: Consider the ‘form’ of learning you used. What other forms could have been used and what would effect might the use of those other forms have had on your learning? Think of sitting and listening versus standing and speaking. Think working alone versus working with others or watching a video versus reading a book versus listening to a podcast. How might the nature of what you learn (the topic or skill or concept being learned) dictate the ideal learning form?

Put another way, how does the learning content and/or goal affect the best learning methods?

Learning Reflection Questions For Students

Also, I previously created questions students can ask themselves before, during, and after learning to improve their thinking, retention, and metacognition. A few highlights from the ‘after learning’ (which qualify them as reflective questions for learning) include:

1. How did that go?

What did I clearly learn? What might I have learned or practiced or improved my understanding of that may not be obvious?

What was most interesting? Least? How can I learn new things if I’m not ‘interested in’ what I’m learning? What do others do in these cases to learn?

What was clear, what was confusing, and what was somewhere in the middle? What do I still need help with? Who can I talk to about the lesson to review key ideas or clarify misunderstandings?

2. What seems most important about what was learned?

What seems less important and what seems more important about what was learned? Or is this something where what was learned doesn’t have a clear hierarchy?

After the lesson, is what seems most important different from how things seemed before and during the lesson? How and why?

3. What should I do with what I’ve learned and how should I respond to what I didn’t learn?

What should I do with what I learned and know? What will I be able to do with this–both now and if and when I improve my understanding of it?

Who should I ‘tell’ or share this with? Who would care and/or benefit the most?

4. What might we learn tomorrow Based on what we learned today?

Where does what we’re learning seem to be ‘heading’? What happens next when we’ve learned things like this in the past?

What could I learn about this tomorrow with help? By myself? What might someone who knows this better than I do ‘learn next’?

5. How have I been changed by what I’ve learned?

How do I feel about this content? Interested? Enthusiastic? Curious? Bored? Indifferent?

How else could I learn this–maybe better? How might I think of this learning in 40 days? 40 weeks? 40 months? 40 years?

More Questions To Reflect On Learning

1. What is the most important concept, skill, or ‘thing’  you learned today, and why do you think it stands out to you?

2. How can you apply what you learned today to your everyday life or future studies? Provide a specific example.

3. What part of the lesson or activity did you find most challenging, and how did you overcome that challenge?

4. Describe a moment during the lesson or activity when you felt confused or unsure. How did you resolve that confusion?

5. How did today’s lesson connect to something you already knew? Did it change or enhance your understanding in any way?

6. What questions do you still have about the topic, and where might you find the answers?

7. In what ways did today’s lesson or activity help you understand a real-world issue or problem?

8. Reflect on your participation today. How did you contribute to the lesson or activity, and what could you do differently next time to improve?

9. What feedback would you give the teacher about this lesson or activity? What worked well for you, and what could be improved or make things clearer, interesting, etc.

Powerful Questions To Help Students Reflect On Their Learning

by TeachThought Staff

What are the types of assessment for learning?

And more importantly, when should you use which? If curriculum is the what of teaching and learning models are the how, assessment is the puzzled ‘Hmmmm’–as in, I assumed this and this about student learning, but after giving this assessment, well….’Hmmmmm.’

In The Difference Between Assessment Of Learning And Assessment For Learning, we explained that “assessment for learning is commonly referred to as formative assessment–that is, assessment designed to inform instruction.” Below, we identify types of assessment of learning–very briefly, with simple ways to ‘think about’ each so that you hopefully wake up with a better grasp of each type.

6 Types Of Assessment Of Learning

1. Diagnostic Assessment (as Pre-Assessment)

Diagnostic assessments are used at the beginning of a course or unit to determine students’ prior knowledge, skills, and understanding of the subject matter. This type of assessment helps teachers identify students’ strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to plan instruction that meets their students’ specific needs. Examples include pre-tests, surveys, or initial observations.

 

One way to think about it: Assesses a student’s strengths, weaknesses, knowledge, and skills before instruction

Another way to think about it: A baseline to work from

Tip: Done at the beginning–of the school year, beginning of a unit, beginning of a lesson, etc.

See also What Is Project-Based Learning?

2. Formative Assessment

Formative assessments are ongoing processes that teachers use to monitor student learning and provide feedback during instruction. These assessments help teachers adjust their teaching strategies to improve student understanding and performance. Examples include quizzes, class discussions, and homework assignments that inform teachers about student progress.

One way to think about it: Assesses a student’s performance during instruction, and usually occurs regularly throughout the instruction process

Another way to think about it: Like a doctor’s ‘check-up’ to provide data to revise instruction

Tip: Using digital exit ticket tools like Loop can be an easy means of checking whether students have understood lesson content, while also promoting student reflection.

3. Summative Assessment

So what are the different types of assessment of learning? The next time someone says ‘assessment,’ you can say “Which type, and what are we doing with the data?” Summative assessment, for example.

Summative assessments evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional period, such as the end of a unit, course, or school year. These assessments are used to determine if students have met the learning objectives and to assign grades. Examples include final exams, end-of-term projects, and standardized tests.

One way to think about it: Measures a student’s achievement at the end of instruction. It’s like talking to someone about a movie after the movie is over. : )

Another way to think about it: It’s macabre, but if formative assessment is the check-up, you might think of summative assessment as the autopsy. What happened? Now that it’s over, what went right and what went wrong?

Tip: Summative assessments can be useful for teachers to improve units and lessons year over year by measuring student performance because they are, in a way, as much a reflection on the quality of the units and lessons themselves as they are on the students.

4. Norm-Referenced Assessment

One way to think about it: Compares a student’s performance against other students (a national group or other ‘norm’)

Another way to think about it: Place, group or ‘demographic’ assessment. Many standardized tests are used as norm-referenced assessments.

Tip: These assessments are useful over time in student profiles or for placement in national-level programs, for example.

5. Criterion-Referenced Assessment

One way to think about it: Measures a student’s performance against a goal, specific objective, or standard

Another way to think about it: a bar to measure all students against

Tip: These can be a kind of formative assessment and should be integrated throughout your curriculum to guide the adjustment of your teaching over time. Mastery or competency-based learning would use criterion-referenced assessments.

6. Interim/Benchmark Assessment

One way to think about it: Evaluates student performance at periodic intervals, frequently at the end of a grading period. Can predict student performance on end-of-the-year summative assessments. A benchmark assessment is an interim assessment so it could be useful to think of them as distinct even though they function similarly.

Another way to think about it: Bar graph or chart growth throughout a year, often against specific ‘benchmarks’

Tip: Benchmark assessments can be useful for communicating important facts and data to parents, district officials, and others. One goal is to inform the allotment of resources (time and money) to respond to that data.

6 Types Of Assessment Of Learning

contributed by Michael Mirra

Abstract

Diversity has been at the forefront of educational discussions over the last few years. When we think about having a diverse classroom we think of ethnicity, race, gender, nationality, religion, and sexual orientation. It is easy for us to forget about socioeconomic status. This paper explores the impact socioeconomic status has on student learning in order for teachers to have a better understanding of their diverse classroom.

Keywords: socioeconomic status, informer choice, late-emerging reading development, standardized testings, student attainment, service-learning

How Socioeconomic Status Influences Learning

At the beginning of the school year, teachers are made aware of characteristics of their students in order to create accommodations. One aspect that is less commonly brought up is socioeconomic status (SES). When a teacher looks at their classroom, they do not see or necessarily know the varying levels of SES that are in front of them. SES has an impact on learning and teachers need to be aware of these impacts if they are going to teach all students.

Corriveau and Kurkul (2016) administered a study of preschool-aged students about how they choose from whom to learn. The purpose of the study was to see if a preschoolers’ preference in informer is related to SES (Corriveau & Kurkul, 2016). Background research on children’s learning showed that preschoolers have two qualifiers when choosing an informer.

They prefer either someone they previously deemed accurate or someone who shares their cultural background (Corriveau & Kurkul, 2016). The authors expand on the first qualifier of accuracy with preference in voice. They ask if there is a preference between a passive voice and an active voice. Passive voice is used in academic language and may be viewed as more accurate than active voice (Corriveau & Kurkul, 2016). They then look to see if preference in voice is related to SES.

Research: The Influence Of Socioeconomic Status On Learning

Their study included 32 children between the ages of four and five from the same preschool. Low-SES was defined as being eligible for free or reduced lunch (Corriveau & Kurkul, 2016). Two informers were presented over several video clips. One informer used a passive voice and the other an active voice. The videos included vocabulary, picture description, and labeling tasks (Corriveau & Kurkul, 2016).

Preference in informer was determined by each child’s judgment of which one was ‘better.’ The results showed that 57% of high-SES students preferred the passive voice where only 25% of low-SES students did (Corriveau & Kurkul, 2016, p. 1533). Low-SES students preferred the active voice.

The researchers hypothesize that this is a result of exposure stating that “children from higher SES families experience more literacy activities” and “exposure to books might be one mechanism by which children associate passive syntax with competence” (Corriveau & Kurkul, 2016, p. 1535). It is concluded that the experience that comes from SES influences preference in the informer. 

SES impacts learning right from the beginning. We may think that everyone starts off on the same foot in preschool, but that is not the case. The process of how students learn is shaped before they begin and can set them on a different path than their peers. We need to be aware of how they are learning to help them become the most successful they can be.

Research: The Influence Of Socioeconomic Status In Elementary School

Kieffer (2010) organized a study on upper elementary students focusing on reading levels of English language learners (ELLs) and native English speakers. The purpose of the study was to look at late-emerging reading difficulties among both groups while taking SES into account. There has been a growing concern about students who successfully learn to read in the lower elementary grades and then fall behind in the upper elementary grades. ELLs and low-SES students are at an elevated risk for these difficulties (Kieffer, 2010). Kieffer looks at both groups to see how SES impacts late-emerignig reading difficulties. 

For his study, ELLs included students whose schools designated them as ‘limited English proficient’ and later gained enough English proficiency to lose that designation. Longitudinal data was collected from a nationally represented sample across three periods: third grade, fifth grade, and eighth grade (Kieffer, 2010). ELLs were shown to be at a greater risk of reading difficulties than native English speakers at each period.

Additionally, low-SES students were seen to be at a greater risk than high-SES students at each period. When the data is looked at with SES, the difference in risk between ELLs and native English speakers is reduced significantly (Kieffer, 2010). The researcher concluded that ELLs and native English speakers with low-SES are not different in their risk for late-emerging reading difficulties. He added, “Given that most ELLs in the sample also had low-SES, this suggests that SES, rather than ELL status, is the most predictive of these two confounded risk factors for late-emerging difficulties” (Kieffer, 2010, p. 486). The comparison between the two groups highlight the impact SES has on reading.

When everyone is learning to read, ELLs at that age are challenged with the same task but in a different language.

Mirra

It is important to note that students can start off successfully and then begin to struggle. When everyone is learning to read, ELLs at that age are challenged with the same task but in a different language. If the low-SES of a native speaker can have the same impact on reading that an ELL faces then we need to prepare our classrooms to meet that need.

What The Research Says About The Effect Of Socioeconomic Status In High School And College

Baker and Johnston (2010) conducted a study of middle school-aged students with the purpose of examining the impact SES has on performance during standardized testing. Background research revealed that students from homes with low-SES are less likely to have support academically, financially, and technologically (Baker & Johnston, 2010). Therefore, students with low-SES have to work harder to overcome these disadvantages. Student learning can then be measured through standardized testing.

Their study involved 14,049 students across fifty-one middle schools. Large low-SES populations were defined as schools with Title 1 funding and data was collected from scores on the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT). The authors hypothesized that there would be no difference in standardized test scores between Title 1 and non-Title 1 schools that were equally funded (Baker & Johnston, 2010).

However, the results of the study suggested that two-thirds of students from Title 1 schools would not pass the FCAT whereas two-thirds of students from non-Title 1 schools would pass the FCAT (Baker & Johnston, 2010). The researchers suggested that “money may not be the main or only factor to why low-SES school students are not performing as well as higher SES school students” and “other variables affect low-SES students’ learning and education, including home life” (Baker & Johnston, 2010, p. 198). This also implies that more funding does not off-set the impacts of low-SES. 

Standardized test scores are a generally accepted measurement that is uniform across all schools in a specific state. Schools value higher test scores, but throwing money at the problem will not guarantee higher test scores.

Palardy (2013) investigated high school-aged students to examine socioeconomic segregation’s impact on student attainment outcomes. Even though schools have integrated racially, they have become segregated by SES. Neighborhood segregation and district boundaries have contributed to this (Palardy, 2013). Its relation to high school graduation and college enrollment is looked at.

His study surveyed students over three periods: sophomore year, senior year, and two years after their expected graduation. High school transcripts were collected for additional data (Palardy, 2013). The nature of the study looked at a low-SES school instead of a low-SES student. The researcher concluded that SES segregation has a strong association with high school graduation and college enrollment (Palardy, 2013).

It is indicated that teachers in low-SES schools are dissatisfied with their environment and administrative support (Palardy, 2013)

Mirra

Two major factors appeared out of the surveys. The first was peer influence. Students at a low-SES school are less likely to have a close friend who desires to attend college and are more likely to have a friend who dropped out of high school (Palardy, 2013). This peer influence undermines their own attainment. The second factor was low teacher morale. It is indicated that teachers in low-SES schools are dissatisfied with their environment and administrative support (Palardy, 2013). This undermines teacher effectiveness and can lead to high teacher turnover rates. 

From the opposite perspective, students from a high-SES school are 68% more likely to attend college. The author added that “integrating schools is likely necessary to fully [address] the negative consequences of attending a low-SEC school” (Palardy, 2013, p. 714). His study outlines how SES affects learning on a larger scale. 

The previous studies looked at the individual. This study looked at the school itself and how it indirectly affected the learning environment. Segregation is a larger issue in society and it is affecting the endgame of education. We need to be aware of that impact in order to work around it.

Researching Socioeconomic Status Outside Of The Classroom

Clever and Miller (2019) held a study that looked at a non-traditional learning experience with college-aged students. Service-learning is the simultaneous learning of theories in the classroom and volunteering at a non-profit or social service group to deepen understanding of class content. The purpose of their study was to explore connections between SES and learning outcomes during service-learning (Clever & Miller, 2019).

It was once thought that most participants in service-learning were middle class due to flexibility in transportation and resources. Background research indicates that this is not always the case (Clever & Miller, 2019). Since it has been revealed that there is diversity in student participation, they took the next step by seeing how the learning process differed between low and high-SES students.

Their study took place at a college in Appalachia that is known for experiential learning. It included forty-seven students in two classes. Students’ SES was defined by their parents’ education and self-identified social class. Of these students, 34% were classified as low-SES, 23% as medium-SES, and 43% as high-SES (Clever & Miller, 2019, p. 210). The professors of the two classes collaborated so their lessons were consistent including similar lectures, reading assignments, and site visits. Data was collected through student assessments that reflected on their experience (Clever & Miller, 2019). It was through these assessments that the authors were able to make their conclusions. 

The results indicated that low-SES students experience learning during service-learning differently than middle and high-SES students (Clever & Miller, 2019). One goal of service-learning is prejudice reduction. It is believed by the authors that middle and high-SES students are less likely to have previous contact with people who experience poverty (Clever & Miller, 2019). Low-SES students will have had that experience and enter the process with limited prejudice.

The level of prejudice reduction would naturally be larger in those who enter the process with more prejudice. Middle and high-SES students’ learning focus is on prejudice reduction. However, the researchers reported that low-SES students’ learning is more focused on “the impact their service has on others rather than on themselves, more attuned to reciprocal learning, and more attuned to systemic explanations for inequality” (Clever & Miller, 2019, p. 214). This shows that the learning experience and its goals are influenced by SES.

Conclusion

Part of teaching high school is preparing students for college. Learning does not end when they graduate high school and neither does the impact of SES. To better prepare our students for lifelong learning we need to look at how they can be impacted in the future and in non-traditional learning situations with low or high-SES.

The impact SES has on learning knows no boundaries. It has influence at the preschool, elementary, middle and high school, and college levels. The impacts can be unique to each level. Formative learning to college attainment are affected. Students can also show success at one level and be impacted at another. Key elements are affected: reading, test scores, and graduation.

The first step for teachers helping students who are affected by SES is to look at how SES impacts learning. Becoming aware of these impacts allows us to shape our classroom, provide accommodations, or identify students that are in need.

Without doing so, these students’ needs will go unnoticed. 

References

Baker, M., & Johnston, P. (2010). The impact of socioeconomic status on high stakes testing reexamined. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 37(3), 193–199.

Clever, M., & Miller, K. S. (2019). “I understand what they’re going through”: How socioeconomic background shapes the student service-learning experience. Teaching Sociology, 47(3), 204–218. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26746538

Corriveau, K. H., Kurkul, K., & Arunachalam, S. (2016). Preschoolers’ preference for syntactic complexity varies by socioeconomic status. Child Development, 87(5), 1529–1537. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24809552

Kieffer, M. J. (2010). Socioeconomic status, English proficiency, and late-emerging reading difficulties. Educational Researcher, 39(6), 484–486. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40793357

Palardy, G. J. (2013). High school socioeconomic segregation and student attainment. American Educational Research Journal, 50(4), 714–754. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23526103

contributed by Edelyn Bontuyan

What makes traditional learning click? 

In-person learning. 

As a teacher, your students look up to you to impart knowledge in a format and manner they can absorb fast and easy. How do you achieve that? You conduct Q&A sessions, set up discussions, conduct practicals, lead peer teaching sessions, and more. 

But here comes a question you didn’t expect. How do you replicate these in-person connections when you are required to teach remotely? Numerous institutions are switching to online teaching, considering all the changes after the pandemic. Also, parents and students are now switching preferences to remote classes due to the convenience.

Well, lucky for you, we’ve got you covered! In this post, you’ll learn about eight tech tools for interactive learning. These tools allow you to replicate in-person connections to make learning relevant, meaningful, and exciting for your remote students.

Remember, these tools are web-based and hosted on servers in different countries. You need a stable internet connection to access them. Also, remember that access to some tools is limited to particular regions.

Despite the limitations, some teachers and students have found it possible to connect to most of the tools with the help of different proxy types. A proxy is a middleperson between your computer (the device) and the server you want access to. 

So, even when you are limited in accessing specific servers on which these tools live, you can connect to a proxy, which will connect to that server on your behalf. Moreover, a proxy stabilizes and optimizes the connection to the servers. 

Now that you understand how to access these tools let’s explore them. Keep exploring to the end to discover tips for selecting a suitable tool.

Flip 

With Flip, you empower your students’ voices. As their teacher, you use the tool to pose prompts or questions, and in response, the students record video clips to share their reflections, thoughts, or presentations. 

Flip humanizes remote learning because students can see and hear each other. In short, you replicate classroom discussions. Plus, you can review videos before they reach the students.  

Pear Deck  

Compared to Flip, Pear Deck is an interactive presentation tool that enhances teacher-student interactions. During presentations, the tool allows for real-time interactions, with your students responding to quizzes or prompts on the platform. This allows you to gather immediate insight into student comprehension and to find a way to adjust instructions accordingly. 

Kahoot!

Kahoot, on the other hand, offers teachers and students a chance to have fun while taking quizzes. Through Kahoot, you can turn your quizzes into timed questions with multiple-choice answers and have your students compete for points by answering the questions. 

With such a tool, you can efficiently prepare students for exams or monitor their learning progress during or after a lesson. 

Padlet 

Padlet takes the approach used during in-person learning a notch higher with students having the chance to post images, videos, documents, and ideas during discussions or brainstorming sessions. 

Compared to in-person learning where showcasing videos might take time, Padlet makes it much easier for students to explore the full extent of sharing knowledge, especially when you assign them group tasks. 

Prezi 

With Prezi, you can forget about static PowerPoint presentations. The tool allows you to create dynamic presentations with engaging visual narratives. 

It is like taking your students through a virtual tour, with the ability to zoom in and out of specific concepts and pan across visuals. Your students can do all these, too, while presenting their ideas. 

Edpuzzle 

Compared to most interactive tools more tailored towards remote learning, Edpuzzle can complement in-person learning too. It is a tool that allows you to create video lessons with a feature to embed quizzes and other elements of interactions within the videos.

Nearpod

Besides Prezi, you can try out Nearpod to transform traditional presentations into interactive slides or virtual field trips. Nearpod allows you to embed quizzes, open-ended questions, and polls within slides, making discussions more interactive. 

1. Quizizz

Quizizz, like Kahoot! It is tailored for quiz designing. However, it does not use a competitive approach to enhance your interaction with the students. 

Quizizz allows self-paced question answering, which can relieve your students’ stress. You can also use it to assign homework quizzes. 

As the eight tech tools for interactive learning show, each uses a unique approach to make remote learning effective. However, the more options, the greater the probability of not even trying one. 

To avoid getting into such a dilemma, here are tips to determine a suitable tool or even which one to try out first:

1. Choosing a tool that offers a wide range of interactions, including simulations, quizzes, presentations, and games, reduces the need to switch between tools. More interaction features under one roof sustain focus and enhance the interaction experience. 

2. Check for compatibility across browsers. Some tools are better suited for specific browsers than others. Also, consider whether the tool is mobile-friendly, as many web users prefer accessing websites on their phones. 

3. Consider whether the team behind the tool offers support in case of crushes. Opt for a tool with a helpful and supportive team in place.

4. Check if the tool supports multiple languages. This would be handy if you have a diverse group of learners. 

5. Prioritize tools with user-friendly and intuitive user interfaces. This will make it easier for your students to adapt to and interact with the tool efficiently.

6. Consider the short- and long-term cost of running the tool. Remember, the students might also be required to pay to use some features of the tool you select.

Conclusion

Teacher-student interaction is critical to delivering knowledge to students. The teacher and student collaborate on projects and discussions, actively participate in various activities, and provide each other with valuable feedback. However, the demand for solutions to sustain in-person interactions is ever-increasing, with so many students desiring to study remotely. 

Fortunately, there are tech tools for interactive learning. And from this article, you’ve had the chance to learn about eight of them. You are also equipped with knowledge on how to access them effectively and select one or more. Yes, there are more tools out there to try. But with the knowledge you’ve gathered, you are ready to explore just about any tool! 

Richard Feynman On Knowing Versus Understanding

by TeachThought Staff

Who is Richard Feynman?

Richard Feynman, born in 1918, was a theoretical physicist whose work in quantum mechanics earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.

According to nobelprize.org, Feynman obtained his B.Sc. in 1939 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and studied “at Princeton University, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1942. “He was Research Assistant at Princeton (1940-1941), Professor of Theoretical Physics at Cornell University (1945-1950), Visiting Professor and thereafter appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (1950-1959).”

Feynman’s legendary intelligence–often mentioned alongside Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein–extends beyond theory and practice in science. Feynman was also renowned for his ability to explain complex concepts with clarity and humor. His innovative teaching methods, characterized by wit and a deep understanding of fundamental principles, inspire educators globally. Feynman’s legacy emphasizes the importance of curiosity, imagination, and critical thinking.

The following is an excerpt from a lecture titled, ‘The Value of Science,’ delivered in New York City in 1955 at the National Science Teachers Association meeting.

See also What Is The Feynman Technique?

“Newton’s ideas about space and time agreed with experiment very well, but in order to get the correct motion of the orbit of Mercury, which was a tiny, tiny difference, the difference in the character of the theory needed was enormous. The reason is that Newton’s laws were so simple and so perfect, and they produced definite results. In order to get something that would produce a slightly different result it had to be completely different. In stating a new law you cannot make imperfections on a perfect thing; you have to have another perfect thing. So the differences in philosophical ideas between Newton’s and Einstein’s theories of gravitation are enormous.

What are these philosophies? They are really tricky ways to compute consequences quickly. A philosophy, which is sometimes called an understanding of the law, is simply a way that a person holds the laws in his mind in order to guess quickly at consequences. Some people have said, and it is true in cases like Maxwell’s equations, ‘Never mind the philosophy, never mind anything of this kind, just guess the equations. The problem is only to compute the answers so that they agree with experiment, and it is not necessary to have a philosophy, or argument, or words, about the equation’.

That is good in the sense that if you only guess the equation you are not prejudicing yourself, and you will guess better. On the other hand, maybe the philosophy helps you to guess. It is very hard to say. For those people who insist that the only thing that is important is that the theory agrees with experiment, I would like to imagine a discussion between a Mayan astronomer and his student. The Mayans were able to calculate with great precision predictions, for example, for eclipses and for the position of the moon in the sky, the position of Venus, etc. It was all done by arithmetic. They counted a certain number and subtracted some numbers, and so on. There was no discussion of what the moon was. There was no discussion even of the idea that it went around. They just calculated the time when there would be an eclipse, or when the moon would rise at the full, and so on.

That is good in the sense that if you only guess the equation you are not prejudicing yourself, and you will guess better. On the other hand, maybe the philosophy helps you to guess. It is very hard to say.

Feynman

Suppose that a young man went to the astronomer and said, ‘I have an idea. Maybe those things are going around, and there are balls of something like rocks out there, and we could calculate how they move in a completely different way from just calculating what time they appear in the sky’. ‘Yes’, says the astronomer, ‘and how accurately can you predict eclipses?’ He says, ‘I haven’t developed the thing very far yet’. Then says the astronomer, ‘Well, we can calculate eclipses more accurately than you can with your model, so you must not pay any attention to your idea because obviously the mathematical scheme is better’.

There is a very strong tendency, when someone comes up with an idea and says, ‘Let’s suppose that the world is this way’, for people to say to him, ‘What would you get for the answer to such and such a problem?’ And he says, ‘I haven’t developed it far enough’. And they say, ‘Well, we have already developed it much further, and we can get the answers very accurately’.

So it is a problem whether or not to worry about philosophies behind ideas. Another way of working, of course, is to guess new principles. In Einstein’s theory of gravitation he guessed, on top of all the other principles, the principle that corresponded to the idea that the forces are always proportional to the masses. He guessed the principle that if you are in an accelerating car you cannot distinguish that from being in a gravitational field, and by adding that principle to all the other principles, he was able to deduce the correct laws of gravitation.

One of the most important things in this ‘guess – compute consequences – compare with experiment’ business is to know when you are right. It is possible to know when you are right way ahead of checking all the consequences. You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. It is always easy when you have made a guess, and done two or three little calculations to make sure that it is not obviously wrong, to know that it is right. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right – at least if you have any experience – because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in. Your guess is, in fact, that something is very simple. If you cannot see immediately that it is wrong, and it is simpler than it was before, then it is right.

The inexperienced, and crackpots, and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong, so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought. What we need is imagination, but imagination in a terrible strait-jacket. We have to find a new view of the world that has to agree with everything that is known, but disagree in its predictions somewhere, otherwise it is not interesting. And in that disagreement it must agree with nature.

Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.

Feyman

If you can find any other view of the world which agrees over the entire range where things have already been observed, but disagrees somewhere else, you have made a great discovery. It is very nearly impossible, but not quite, to find any theory which agrees with experiments over the entire range in which all theories have been checked, and yet gives different consequences in some other range, even a theory whose different consequences do not turn out to agree with nature. A new idea is extremely difficult to think of. It takes a fantastic imagination…”

Video Transcription Courtesy Of Reddit user Reltpid

contributed by Barbara R. Blackburn

Differentiation is a popular concept in today’s schools.

After all, it makes sense. We’d all love to provide instruction tailored to every student’s needs. However, intentionally or accidentally, many teachers simply lower the rigor for struggling students. When we do that regularly, students always stay behind. In some cases, they are never even allowed to work at a higher level, which isn’t fair to those students.

From my perspective, rigor is not just ‘harder work.’ In Rigor is Not a Four-Letter Word, I define rigor as creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, supported so he or she can learn at high levels, and demonstrate learning at high levels.  

Notice that the second aspect of rigor is supporting students. In other words, rigor is having high expectations but providing the scaffolding needed so students can achieve those goals.  In other words, the higher the level of rigor, the higher the need for support.

So, let’s examine rigor and differentiation together. Differentiation aims to help students learn and grow, and if they are learning rigorous content, we must provide appropriate support so they can succeed.  

Let’s look at a sample lesson used in middle school science. The topic is oceans, and the teacher faced the issue of having a small group of students who couldn’t read the text. She also had some advanced students who were bored. Notice how all students’ results are similar, but the process and scaffolding are different.

Stage One

Level One: Students are given an article on the same topics written at a lower reading level than the standard text. Using a detailed ‘Thinking Notes’ (see below) they read the text, with the teacher’s assistance as needed. Next, they answer comprehension questions, which are provided in advance.

Level Two: Students read the grade-level article. They are provided with standard ‘Thinking Notes’ that they can choose to use. Next, they answer comprehension questions. 

Level Three: Students read an article on the same topic written at a higher level than the standard text. Next, they answer comprehension questions.

Stage Two

Level One: Students read the grade-level article. While reading the lower-level text, students have begun to develop vocabulary and background knowledge, ensuring they are more successful with the grade-level text. Using detailed ‘Thinking Notes,’ they read the text with the teacher’s assistance as needed. Next, they answer comprehension questions, which include opportunities to compare and contrast information.

Level Two: Students read a second article, one that is written at a higher level. A standard ‘Thinking Notes’ is provided if they need it. Next, they answer comprehension questions, which include opportunities to compare and contrast information.

Level Three: Students read a complementary article on the same topic written at a higher level than the standard text. Next, they answer comprehension questions, which include opportunities to compare and contrast information.

Class Discussion

Level One: Students choose one of the identified issues related to oceans. Appropriate resources are provided. With the teacher’s guidance, they create a three-column chart with the heading Issue, how changes have affected people, and how they would address the situation. Students would write a narrative explaining how the issue impacts oceans, including justification for their points. They may also propose a solution for the issue, with details. 

Level Two: Students may work individually or in pairs. After choosing an issue related to oceans, students research the topic more deeply. They find at least two sources, one of which is an editorial, website or promotional materials for an advocacy group, or some other type of opinion about the issue. Next, they evaluate the credibility of their opinion piece, comparing it to the factual information found in other sources.  

Finally, they write a critique of the editorial, website or promotional materials, or another type of opinion. The critique should include their opinion and a justification of their points, including factual information. They conclude with their own opinion as to a solution and an explanation.

Level Three: Students choose an issue, either one identified in class or another based on their research (a minimum of three appropriate sources). Individually, students create a research question, describe an appropriate investigation approach, and justify why their investigation needs to occur and how it will impact society.

As you review the lesson, the reading portion is built on the strategy, ‘Layering Meaning.’ That is only the starting point for struggling students rather than just giving them an ‘easier’ text. Once they have read the easier text, notice they moved back to the grade-level text to read with support. 

By reading the easier text, they have built background knowledge and vocabulary, which helps them read the grade-level article. This key strategy allows students to stay on target rather than continually falling behind.  As a bonus, notice that advanced students read a more challenging article, building on their knowledge and hopefully piquing their interest.

Conclusion

Differentiation for struggling students is a critical part of success. However, if we simply ‘make it easy enough for them,’ we do a disservice to those students. If we keep the standards high and increase our scaffolding, we can help students learn and achieve rather than stay at a lower level.

Students choose one of the identified issues related to oceans. Appropriate resources are provided. With the teacher’s guidance, they create a three-column chart with the heading Issue, how changes have affected people, and how they would address the situation.

Students would write a narrative explaining how the issue is impacting oceans including justification for their points. 
They may also propose a solution for the issue, with details.  

Fielding, L., & Roller, C. (1992, May). Making difficult books accessible and easy books acceptable. The Reading Teacher , 678–685.